Operating On Yourself, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

I'm not praying here. David is preaching. Notice, my soul, that's who he's talking to, wait in silence for God only. That's a sermon.

Don't you wish yours was that short? My soul, wait in silence for God only. You see, if you're going to operate on yourself to make yourself spiritually healthy, you have to be both the preacher and the congregation. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Evan O'Neill Kane was born in Pennsylvania just as the Confederacy was taking Fort Sumner. His father was a major general in the Union Army and in fact had received a bravery medal in the Battle of Gettysburg. His mother, Elizabeth, was a medical doctor in a day where there were very, very few women who practiced medicine.

From his father, he inherited courage and valor from his mother, a love for medicine. Evan O'Neill Kane became one of the most innovative surgeons of his day. In the 1920s, he became convinced that far too many surgeries were being performed by giving general anesthesia. And he was convinced that those surgeries could have been done with local anesthesia. His claims encountered a great deal of skepticism from the medical community.

So Dr. Kane decided he would prove his point. He had performed nearly 4,000 appendectomies in his career. And he decided that this next appendectomy that he would do would be done only with a local anesthetic. So on February the 15th, 1921, he decided to perform the surgery. He had selected his patient carefully. He didn't put him to sleep, and he began to work, slicing through the skin and the tissue. He found the appendix, he removed the appendix, and he sewed the man back up.

The surgery was a complete success. The patient said that he had experienced only minor discomfort. By the way, the name of the patient was Dr. Evan O'Neill Kane. He had performed the surgery on himself.

After that, by the way, Dr. Kane received a lot of notoriety. As we go through life, we sometimes become, or almost always, infected with unhealthy attitudes, toxic habits, infectious sins. We are exposed to a lot of spiritual contamination as we live out our lives. What that does is that leaves us depressed and discouraged and angry and bitter and fearful and anxious and all those things. And while it is helpful to have others perform surgery on us when we are spiritually suffering, like having friends to encourage us and, if need be, seeking out professional counseling, I don't believe we could ever become as spiritually healthy as we could be through those two routes only.

I believe that what we need to discover is what Dr. Evan O'Neill Kane discovered. When it comes to your spiritual health, you need to learn how to perform spiritual surgery on yourself. Open your Bibles to 1 Samuel, chapter 23. The context will be David, young David, David who went so obscure of a teenager that when Samuel went to Jesse's house, his own father forgot to mention him as one of his sons. He went from that obscurity to having Samuel whisper in his ear that you'll be the next king over all of Israel.

What a thing for a teenager to hear. And then he went and slew Goliath, and so everybody knew who he was. He became a hero in the land.

Everything was going great. He's a talented young man. He's invited to King Saul's court.

He plays instruments. He sings for the king, and there was only one rub with the whole thing. The paranoid King Saul hated David and decided he was going to kill David. And so what you read is David running and Saul chasing, and it goes on for quite some time. And here's an incident where David is in the wilderness of Ziph, and he has been running from Saul, and in verse 14 it said, David stayed in the wilderness in the strongholds and remained in the hill country in the wilderness of Ziph, and Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hands. And now David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh. David is having a bad spiritual day.

Who would want the king to chase you down? You're a young man. You're thinking, this may be my last day.

Just imagine the stress, the things that cause anxiety, worry, all those things in our lives. And so here comes a friend alongside. In verse 16 it says, Jonathan Saul's son arose and went to David at Horesh, and he encouraged him in God.

That's interesting. He encouraged him in God. Don't miss that phrase in God because there's a context to how Jonathan encouraged him. He didn't say, hey, I'm with you. No matter what, I'll be here for you.

Things always work out eventually. He encouraged him in God because notice what he said. He said to him, do not be afraid because of the hand Saul my father shall not find you, and you will be king over Israel. And he says, and I will be next to you, and Saul my father knows that also. How did he encourage him? He basically just reiterated what Samuel the prophet had told David.

You will be king. He encouraged them. Sometimes when we're spiritually struggling, it's great to have a friend come alongside and encourage you. By the way, I said earlier that sometimes we need professional counseling. David received professional counseling, if you may. You see, when David became king, he went through a really dark spot in his life. You know it.

It's famous. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then he basically orchestrated the murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. Now, because David was king and nobody would mess with David, he was able to cover that sin up. Even if people knew it, no one ever mentioned it, and so David, for about a year, covered up his sin. In his confessional Psalms that he later wrote, David said, I was in misery that whole year, under tremendous guilt, under tremendous conviction, but he had covered it all. So, God decided maybe what David needs is professional counseling, and so he sent him a professional.

Now, he wasn't a professional therapist. He was a professional prophet, and his name was Nathan. Now, Nathan was sent by God to speak to David. Now, you can just imagine, whenever you go publicly in a king's court and say to that king, you're a dirty, rotten scoundrel, normally speaking, you probably die in that court.

To confront a king like that, you would never probably ever be able to survive. So, Nathan went to the court, and he had an ingenious methodology. Nathan knew that David was a shepherd, and so Nathan said to him, David, can I tell you a story? And David's like, well, you're a prophet.

Go ahead. Give me a story. He said, I want to tell you a story about, first of all, a man who had just a little lamb. That's all he had. That's what he owned, one. Now, David was a shepherd.

Just one, yeah. And there was this other guy, and he had a whole bunch of sheep, a big flock of sheep. And then what he decided to do is he would go and steal that one little lamb. Well, by the time he gets that odd, David, thinking back to his shepherding day, said, that man should die. And Nathan pointed his finger at David and said, that man is you. And that's really what caused David to come out of the spiritual funk that he was in and decided that he would confess and acknowledge a sin before God and before man.

So, David had both friends to encourage him, and he had a professional counselor. Now, I want to go to chapter 30 of 1 Samuel, though, and show you something else. In chapter 30 of 1 Samuel, this is dealing with the Amalekites, who David is fighting with. David and his army are trying to encounter the Amalekites.

The Amalekites are trying to encounter them. And in verse 2, it says, and the Amalekites came to the city. And it says, and they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great, without killing anyone.

And they carried them off and went on their way. So they went into a city, David's men were, his families were, everything else, and they took all the women, all the children into captivity, which assuredly means slavery. When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. And then David and the people who were afflicted with him lifted their voices, and they wept until there was no strength in them to weep.

They've gone completely into the grieving process. This isn't just that you lost the son, you lost all your sons, you lost the daughter, you lost all your daughters, you lost all your family, you lost your neighbors, you lost your friends, everybody. And so there is this tremendous outpouring of grief and mourning that goes on. It even says, now David's two wives have been taken captive, Ahinoam, the Jezreelites, and Abigail, the widow of Nabal, the Kemalite.

Now here's what happens. Moreover, David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him. It says, for the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and daughters.

Wow, talk about a bad day. You lose your own family, you lose your own friends, you have all those children's pictures in your mind all taken off, likely into captivity, to become slaves. And now the people, it's typical of the grieving process, anger turned outwards, one of the early stages when we grieve. And they need an object of their anger, and their anger is David. And so they say, you brought us here, you put us in this situation. You know what?

I think we ought to stone you to death. Now you talk about a bad spiritual day, an unhealthy spiritual day, David is having one. But notice the difference.

Jonathan doesn't show up, Nathan doesn't show up. It says in the next sentence, but David strengthened himself, and the Lord is God. David committed surgery on himself. He strengthened himself. Notice he was in spiritual vulnerability, if you follow the sermon, spiritual sickness. But now he has brought himself back to health and he did it to himself because he operated on himself.

And again, notice it says he strengthened himself in the Lord is God. That's what Jonathan did. How did he do that? How does that work?

How does it happen? Turn with me now to Lamentations, Lamentations chapter three, very famous passage. Lamentations chapter three, written by Jeremiah. Jeremiah would have had a lot of spiritually sick days. I can't imagine there's any character in the Bible I'd less like to be than Jeremiah. He was an interesting man. He was a prophet before the exile. The exciting thing for Jeremiah was God called him and told him that since you've been in your mother's womb, I have decided you will be my prophet.

That sounds really good. That sounds impressive. And then he said to him, and oh, by the way, just one little asterisk, no one will ever believe anything you say and all the people will hate you. And that was Jeremiah's life.

That's why he is called the weeping prophet. He has a lot of bad days. Well, Jeremiah is about to operate on himself. He doesn't have any friends to encourage him.

He doesn't have any professional counselors to help him. He has to operate on himself. And so in verse 19 of chapter three, he says, he says, remember my affliction and my wondering the wormwood and the bitterness. He said, surely my soul remembers and is now bowed down within me. Basically saying this, Lord, my life stinks.

I am spiritually in a bad place. I need to remember that. And then he says something, watch, this I recall to my mind. All of a sudden he says, wait, I recalled something.

I started thinking differently. I recalled something to my mind. He said, this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. All of a sudden he does this surgery on himself and he goes from despair to hope. And he does it by simply telling us, I recalled something to my mind.

What does it recall? Well, here it is. The Lord loving kindness is indeed never cease. That's that great word hesed. It means love, loyal love, grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness.

It is the most impregnated word in the Old Testament. He said, you know, I remember that. Your love for me never ceases. I'm having a terrible day, but your love for me never ceases. He says for his compassion never fails.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

Notice what he says, I got it. I was able to turn it around. I operated on myself.

I remembered who you are and I remembered what you do and how you think about me. And whenever I did that performing surgery on myself, all of a sudden instead of despair, I'm having hope. Now let me show you how this works with David. Turn with me to Psalm 62 and David is going to do it. Now remember, one of the key ways to describe what faith does, I know this seems a little bit boring and daunting to us, but if you said faith does what to me, you only can use one word, pastor, one word, faith waits. That's what faith does. There's nothing in the world that takes more faith than waiting. You see, that's the measure of your faith is waiting.

And so Jeremiah said it, now watch David pick up on it. He says in verse one, my soul waits in silence for God only. From him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation.

He's my stronghold. I shall not be greatly shaken. Notice now, he says, my soul within me is waiting and he's going to say a few things about God. He's going to say that what his soul is doing, he's experienced this exercising his faith with waiting because God is his deliverer, his salvation, God is his rock. Verse five, he says, my soul waits in silence for God only. For my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.

I shall not be shaken. He said, on God my salvation and my glory rest. The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in him all the times, oh people. He says, pour out your heart before him. God has a refuge for us. Now he says, I'm waiting.

Now this is interesting. He's once again operating on himself, but I think it's something that's really fascinating is verse five when he says, my soul waits in silence for God only. This is not a prayer. David's not praying here. David is preaching. Notice my soul, that's who he's talking to, waits in silence for God only. That's a sermon.

Don't you wish yours was that short? My soul waits in silence for God only. You see, if you're going to operate on yourself to make yourself spiritually healthy, you have to be both the preacher and the congregation. You see, sometimes you have to talk to yourself. That's what David is doing. He is talking to himself.

My soul, you need to wait in silence. In fact, he then goes down in verses 11 and 12 and says, once God has spoken, twice I heard this, that power belongs to God and loving kindness is yours, oh Lord, for you recompense a man according to his work. That's kind of fascinating. What is it that David is remembering? He's remembering the word of God.

He's remembering truth about God. Notice he says, I know you said this. In fact, I think you've said this at least twice.

I think that's just fascinating. Said what? Your power belongs to you. He said, and loving kindness is yours, oh Lord. You see, that's what David is doing.

His conclusion in all this as he preaches to himself, the surgery on himself is, you know what? I won't be shaken. You see, I will not be shaken. I am not going to let my spiritual struggles get in my way of my spiritual walk.

You see, sometimes we have friends who encourage us and every once in a while we may have a professional to help us along the way, but if you're ever going to be spiritually healthy, you have to learn to operate on yourself spiritually. That's what has to happen. Two elements in operating on yourself, one, you have to wait. Well, I know you just hate that. Psalm 46, 10 has been one of my favorite Psalms ever since I've converted to Christ, but be still and know that I am God. Boy, is that hard. You see, that is really hard.

Just be still and know that I am God. Wait. If you trust me, wait. Isn't that hard? You know why it's so hard? Because we don't trust them.

That's what makes it so hard for us. Time after time, he shows his faithfulness, but the next time you're in a spiritual struggle, it's like I don't want to wait. I want to think I need it now. I need it now.

I need it now. So you have the idea of waiting and then you have to bring to mind the truth of God. What has God said about my situation?

What has God said? When we do that, hope returns to our heart. We're healthy. The surgery is a success. You see, what's the surgical tool that you would use then? It's interesting. I mean, if you go to a physical operating room, think of the things you see there, scaffolds and scissors and calipers and forceps and sponges and sutures and a bunch of sterilized stuff.

It's all over the place. What do you do surgery with in the word of God? What's the surgery that I perform myself spiritually? Turn with me to Hebrews 4, Hebrews in the New Testament chapter 4. The context of the instrument is found in verse 11. The entire book of Hebrews, it's a great book in the New Testament, is that there are believers that the writer of Hebrews is writing to who are discouraged with their life. Most of them have been Jewish believers. In other words, their heritage is Jewish. They've converted to Christ.

They are Messianic Jews. The problem that they've had is now for 20 years, the Jewish community has hated them and ostracized them. So they've lost their friends. They've lost their family. They've lost their businesses. They've also been persecuted by the Greeks and Romans.

They're a discouraged group of people. So the writer is writing to them because what they've decided on their own, or at least he caught wind of, is they're thinking, you know what, maybe we ought to go back to Judaism because everybody likes us back there. And he says, don't you dare do that. And then he decides he's going to use an analogy. He compares them and us to the Exodus generation. And it's kind of interesting.

And his basic premise is this. Yes, you were saved in Egypt because you were under the blood of the lamb at the Passover. And you were, as Paul said, baptized when you went through the Red Sea.

You, in a sense, saved. Now you're on your way to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. But he said, you know what I'm worried about? Just like that generation, almost all of you are going to die in the wilderness. You're going to be saved, you'll be out of Egypt, out of the world, but you're never going to make it to the spiritual life that God meant for you to have. You're going to die in the wilderness.

That's what he keeps warning them. He says, what you really want to do is get into the wilderness, and he calls that the faith rest life, a life spiritually flowing with milk and honey. So in verse 11, he says, therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall.

He says, through following the same example of disobedience that they had. He says, let me explain how you get there. And for the sake of the sermon, you get there by performing surgery on yourself.

That's how you get there. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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